Battle Beyond Someone Else's Stars

If I were to make a New Year resolution in the arena of writing about films, it would probably be something along the lines of 'stop saying "the film has been made with a high level of technical proficiency, but"' – mainly because technology has been at the level where virtually anyone can film and edit a film to a decent-looking standard for probably getting on for a couple of decades now. The days of interesting films being sabotaged by lousy production values are long gone; sadly, what seems to have replaced them is a world where most people don't bother making films with any new ideas in them, because they can always rely on the visual impression they make being acceptable.

You can see this writ large in most of the comic book movies released in the year just concluded, but it happens everywhere – most commonly in those genres traditionally reliant on special effects for their storytelling. The modern special effects movie first appeared in the SF genre, of course – specifically a variety of space opera more noted for colourful visuals and energetic storytelling than a particularly high level of intellectual rigour. This particular kind of film has gone out of fashion somewhat in recent times – Disney paid an eye-watering sum for the rights to the Star Wars series in 2012, but well within ten years they discovered the appetite for them was far from insatiable and the franchise has essentially been a small-screen concern since the end of 2019.

Which brings us to Zach Snyder, whose influence over DC's movie division has effectively come to an end, leaving the writer-director working on continuing his relationship with Netflix. Now, I thought that the zombie movie Army of the Dead was a pretty good fit for Snyder's style (better than a typical superhero film anyway) and we are promised a sequel in due course – however, in the meantime, he is devoting his energies to something called Rebel Moon, the first chunk of which is currently available for consumption.

The deep pockets and ambition of Netflix have been often commented upon in the past; well, they seem to have been fully deployed here. One of the local shops already has a set of shelves covered in Rebel Moon merch, which may have been there since before the film was even released; somebody somewhere has clearly concluded that Rebel Moon is going to turn out to be the shizz and is taking no chances on the cashing-in front. The fact that the current film is only the first of a two-part story just adds to the impression that Snyder and Netflix have decided they are going to have a big hit, regardless of what the audience may actually think. This would normally be a risky course of action.

The first film, technically Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, thankfully eschews the usual caption establishing the setting and back-story for a voice-over doing the same job. Basically we are back in Ruritanian space opera territory: interstellar empire, monarchy overthrown, power seized by evil master villain, rebel insurgency getting under way. A cry of 'Hang on, it's just like...' is almost irresistible – but one suspects that this would just get an eye-roll and a mutter of 'Sh'yeah, what else?' from the writer-director.

Soon the camera pans down onto the rocky yet verdant moon Veldt, the rustic nature of which is flagged up by the fact that the first person we see is someone ploughing a field with a space horse. This is main character Kora (Sofia Boutella), a young woman with a mysterious and troubled past who has been living for a while in a small independent farming settlement. Soon enough her past comes back to haunt her as an imperial space dreadnought turns up and disgorges several shuttles full of thuggish stormtroopers who proceed to intimidate the villagers.

Yes, the dreadnought is looking for the, er, alliance of rebels, but it's taking longer than planned and they need provisions. So the evil admiral in command (Ed Skrein) decrees the empire will be taking pretty much the entire harvest in a few weeks time, dooming everyone to starvation. Unless, of course, Kora can gather together a motley band of misfit warriors to help defend the villagers from this seemingly unstoppable force.

At which point the astute viewer may find themselves crying 'Hang on, now it's just like Battle Beyond the Stars' – the 1980 Jimmy Murakami movie which gave a young Jim Cameron one of his big breaks in the industry. The thing is, of course, that both the first Star Wars movie and The Phantom Menace were both inspired, one way or another, by Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, while Battle Beyond the Stars is a more direct lift from the same director's Seven Samurai. So we're still playing the same game in every meaningful respect.

The thing is that there have been loads of remakes of Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress, and other Kurosawa movies, and most of them were much more fun than Rebel Moon turns out to be. I suspect this is partly a result of just how long-winded Rebel Moon is – it's already longer than The Magnificent Seven (the most famous American version of this story) and yet it only covers (being charitable) the first half of the story, the getting-the-gang-together bit. All the rebelling on the Rebel Moon will be in the second film.

It's not actually dull – you're never far away from a sequence in which someone has to break in a wild space griffin or engage in a sword fight with a half-woman, half-spider monster – but none of this really advances the plot or does much to build the world in any coherent way. It just feels like Snyder just doing stuff because he thinks it's cool and inherently interesting to watch. But it may not be, and the director's trademark lack of facility with anything resembling nuance or subtlety is on full display.

There are flashes of some interesting ideas going on here – Anthony Hopkins contributes the voice of a somewhat pacifist robot knight, for instance – but most of it is too hackneyed and humourless to actually be interesting. And it seems to me that Snyder fails to appreciate one of the main reasons for the first Star Wars' success, which for me is that it gives the impression of actually having been made on location in another galaxy: every frame is packed with throwaway, casual detail, presented with utter naturalism. Even the most fervent member of the cult of Zach Snyder would surely concede that, whatever his talents as a film-maker, no-one would ever mistake any of his films for something taking place in the real world.

Nevertheless, the cult of Snyder exists and there is every chance its members will lap this up and eagerly await the second instalment until it turns up later in the year. But Rebel Moon doesn't do justice to any of its influences or inspirations. It was always going to feel derivative, but it manages to do so while missing all the charm and sense of fun they possessed. It's hard to imagine this proto-franchise proving to have any legs worth mentioning.

Awix

08.01.24 Front Page

Back Issue Page